Cáo Zhí 曹植 (192–232), zì Zǐ jiàn 子建, posthumously titled Prince Sī of Chén 陳思王, was the third son of 曹操 (Cáo Cāo) and the most celebrated fù-poet and lyric voice of the Jiànān 建安 era. As a youth he was Cáo Cāo’s favored candidate for the succession but lost out to his elder brother Cáo Pī 曹丕 (later Wèi Wéndì 魏文帝). Under his brother and his nephew Wèi Míngdì 魏明帝 he was repeatedly demoted, transferred, and confined — first to Ānxiānghóu 安鄉侯, then Yōngqiūhóu, then Dōng’ēwáng 東阿王, then Chénwáng 陳王 — and his political frustration suffuses much of his mature work. He died in 232 at Chén 陳 (modern Huáiyáng 淮陽 in Hénán) at the age of 41 sui.
Cáo Zhí is the canonical poet of the Jiànān style: the Luò shén fù 洛神賦, Qī ài 七哀, Bái mǎ piān 白馬篇, Zèng Bái Mǎ Wáng Biāo 贈白馬王彪, the seven Zá shī 雜詩, and the letters Yǔ Yáng Dézǔ shū and Yǔ Wú Jìzhòng shū are the foundation pieces of medieval Chinese literary tradition. Standard biography in Sānguó zhì, Wèi shū 19. His collection survives in the form KR4b0004 Cáo Zǐjiàn jí 曹子建集 — a Sòng Jiādìng (1213) recompilation.